Racial identity is key to this tricky, intelligent first novel by Ploughshares editor Don Lee.

	"COUNTRY OF ORIGIN" By Don Lee Norton ($24.95)

Its affectless title, a kind of pun, cleverly evokes the deadpan style of Lee's complicated portrayal of intertwined lives in 1980 Tokyo.

The novel pivots on the death of military brat Lisa Countryman, a Berkeley student ostensibly doing research in Tokyo.

Using narrative overlap and flashback, Lee spins a yarn that is as much a mystery as a meditation.

On the surface, it's an exploration of the Tokyo demimonde, focusing on clubs and "love hotels," where businessmen indulge in nonconformist pleasures.

Lisa's research leads her to a brief, doomed career in these clubs.

Her quest is compelling, and Lee generally tells the story well. At times, however, the book feels overstuffed, and the explanation for what happened to Lisa -- apparently, she was caught in a nefarious business deal -- seems too little, too late.

Still, the story has good bones and Lee's treatment of race is fascinating. This is a novel of color in more ways than one.

Tom Hurley, the U.S. Embassy functionary charged with finding out what happened to Lisa, is a kind of mirror image of her. Like Lisa, he's racially mixed. But at least Hurley knows where he comes from; Lisa doesn't, and the "research" she does into Japanese mores is actually her investigation into her origin.

Kenzo Ota, a Tokyo policeman depressed by his divorce and stuck in his career, gives the book resonance, stability and narrative drive. Ota is not only uncomplicated and racially secure, he's funny and occasionally touching, unlike any other character.

The three stories interlock, giving the novel urgency.

None of the relationships is straightforward. Lisa Countryman does the sexual duty her courtesan-like job requires and falls in love with a Japanese businessman named David Saito (or is it Vincent Kitamura?)

Hurley enters into an affair with Julia Tinsley, a postcard-pretty photographer who's married to Kitamura (or is it Saito?)

And Ota, eager to rekindle his career and his sexuality, enters into a relationship with his landlady, Keiko Saotome, a love counselor on the side.

Ultimately, the relationships balance. They even make sense, and the mystery of Lisa's death is nailed down, though whether it was a murder remains an open question.

Otherwise, there is closure, if not comfort. The world since 1980, as seen through Hurley's eyes, "was a much meaner place now, more superficial, more corruptible. There were scandals, but nothing was really scandalous, because the worst things imaginable happened every day and were immediately packaged into entertainment. No one seemed to have any innocence left to lose."

Lisa Countryman is an innocent who had much more than innocence to lose. By hinging this story on her brief, unhappy and disturbingly colorful life, Lee has crafted a mystery-plus, artfully intertwining social issues and personality.